House Republicans To Redefine Rape To Limit Coverage For Abortions

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Drugged, raped, and pregnant? Too bad. Republicans are pushing to limit rape and incest cases eligible for government abortion funding. In their eyes it apparently isn't really rape unless the woman is bruised or bleeding.

More in this article: The House GOP's Plan to Redefine Rape.

Which is the point I presume, and a legal guarantee to have a large number of abortion cases dealing with the costs hitting the courts. Fishing for precedent by law. Brilliant.

Just as an indication of how 'pure' the new breed of house Republicans actually is ideologically, a November 2010 Hart Research poll [PDF] indicated that a majority of American voters who voted for a Republican candidate (71 percent) opposed the Smith bill. But that ideological purity, even though it exceeds that of that part of the electorate that actually voted for them, is not surprising considering the extent to which the Republicans have recently litmus-tested their candidates. Grown-ups, reasonable people and moderates need not apply. Let's have a tea party with Michelle Bachmann and Sarah Palin!

 

Wow, that is amazing. I had no idea that federal tax money was being used to pay for abortions. I'd love to see which part of the Constitution allows that, or maybe it is being done for national security interests, or maybe to benefit interstate commerce. I am very solidly pro-choice, but I have a very hard time understanding why abortion is something the federal government is paying for. Then again, I feel the same way about vasectomies and viagra (both of which I do not know if the federal government pays for).

 

I'd like to see where the Constitution says that it can't pay of them. Just as I guess the feds can define what rape is, or did you miss that part?

Not sure what that even is any longer, other than large corporate handouts.

 

Yeah, this makes no sense. I mean, I understand why they'd want to cut funding for abortions in cases of rape. Being pregnant as a result is terrible for the woman, but it doesn't excuse the taking of another innocent human life (the pro-life perspective). What I don't understand is why force should make any difference one way or another. Beaten, tied up, drugged, or just pressured by authority, I don't see it making any difference. If any is acceptable reason for abortion, then all are, and if any isn't, then none are.

 

Well, as I see it (and I don't necessarily agree), it depends on how inclusive your definition of "rape" is and what passes by it. If you can claim to have been raped because you've had a few glasses of hard liquor and your judgement was impaired (and so you couldn't give consent), you could argue that it was your own fault and not equal to a gang of thugs breaking your teeth in and forcefully having sex with you in a back alley.

Now, I can understand the idea that some women might want someone else to pay for their abortion, and (even more importantly) that you could make political hay out of campaigning against that idea. However, I personally don't think it happens quite as often as the ladies and gentlemen in the US House of Representatives seem to think. I think it is mostly political grandstanding designed to provoke reactions from their own electorate (kind of like the initial part of Snook's) rather than lead to any meaningful change.

 

Show me where it says that.

So they can't define rape either? Any government is charged with the responsibility for protecting the lives, health and property of its citizens. The Founders weren't idiots.

 

Two points:

1. Who are the people? There is a reason we have national elections, and the people elect a political platform. And you bet, it is still the people's government.

2. Anytime the states feel that they should have the power to pay for abortions under the circumstances listed, it is free to take that responsibility from the federal government. That part, I agree with. The states have first choice in making abortion funding available.

There is one final point. The federal government does protect the rights of its citizens, all its citizens, even women, believe it or not. In this instance, it seems to be acting to place them back into servitude once again, by redefining rape in a much more "generous manner" to men who feel they are entitled to violate women.

 

Really? When did they decide to do that?

...And the people ARE all these things?

 

I didn't say it did limit the people's rights, not in the least. The Consitution was crafted to expand the powers of the federal government, not to limit it, as you suggest. It replaced the much weaker original Articles of Confederation. It is one of the reasons the Constitutional Convention was held in secret, with the stated goal of reworking the Articles. Instead, they crafted a new Constitution, which would give the Federal government much more power than it orginally had.

 

A government doesn't have to be "all-powerful" to protect the rights of women. It only fills the vacuum left regarding health care regarding women by the states. The specific issue before us the the redefining of what constitutes "rape." More directly to change how payouts are done by the federal government doesn't have to require redefining the term, does it? As much as you and Snook would like to change the specific issue, towards abortion itself, it cannot be avoided with a pretense that is unconstitutional, since this has already been decided.

That wasn't the driving issue of the Revolution, which was really about equal and fair representation in that government.

You were the one who mentioned the Founder's intentions. I was merely pointing out that there was a cross-current of ideas regarding the "limits" of government. That the Founders did not agree and arrived at the Constitution as a compromise doesn't demostrate in the least that they meant to "limit government." I have already proven that they expanded the power of the federal government in crafting the Constitution.

The Constituion doesn't prevent the federal government from doing so, except in the sense that women are protected by law like all citizens.

 

Monty,
the constitution also has no passages where it mentions 'national security letter', 'income tax', 'punitive damage', 'filibuster' - yet all these things exist, very likely legally.

 

Montresor - We are looking at the same object but from two different sides. Jefferson and Hamilton had the same argument when Hamilton created the national bank, and had the federal government assume the debts of the Revolution by the states. The anti-federalists saw the Constitution as what the federal government was specifically allowed to do; while the Federalists - Hamilton, Adams, Washington - viewed the same document as a blueprint for building a united government in which the federal government was not specifically bound by the states and regional differences, but would become the dominant power. The issue of salvery is another good example of this.

In the end the issue was resolved when as president, Jefferson himself, went outside the limits of the Constitution to make the Louisiana Purchase. The problem for you and Snook is that it can't be argued in an historical context. Why? Look at what the Founders actually did as presidents and cabinet members. You may be surprised. But feel free to certainly argue it from outside history and as a technical, legal fine point. Only be aware that you are really arguing against the Founders and not with them.

 

Ragusa - Another critical one is Civil Rights. The historical roots of this argument are largely in the Southern, slave-holding states, which were always fearful of how the federal government would act on the issue of slavery and race. If you speak with old school racist bigots in the South they have always hated the federal government because of the Civil Rights movement. Note that in the last mid-term Rand Paul brought out that old argument about the federal government:

This is the major reason I despise that argument so much. I understand its history. In this instance it is being turned against women, rather than blacks. Please note, Monty, that I don't include you in that bunch. I have way more respect for you and I understand you are not using it in that manner. You are also outside of our culture, so you are arguing it with less ideology than opposing sides use that old argument here in the US.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/20/AR2010052003500.html

...And yes, the old anti-federalist argument still lives on.

That's only your opinion that they "violated" the Constitution. They saw it differently, which is that the Constitution does not say that they couldn't specifically do those things mentioned, so they did them. And the people were better off for it, which is the real function of government.